In a roundtable conversation “Smart Hiring & Building a Culture of Success” held early this morning at the Internet Summit in Raleigh, two entrepreneurs shared stories and advice with a small crowd.
Peter Corbett, CEO of iStrategyLabs, a Washington, DC-based digital marketing agency, led the conversation by discussing his rationale for co-locating all employees of an organization.
“It’s important to have everyone in the same house,” said Corbett, “Yes, this is controversial, but I believe it’s important to see people’s faces when you’re making decisions.” Corbett referenced recent books, blog posts, and industry trends that suggest that remote-work is on the rise and is increasing employee productivity. It’s just not something that his company does, and it’s not something that his company will ever do.
“The best work is done shoulder to shoulder with colleagues,” said Corbett, which helps build intrapersonal relationships and creates opportunities for creative idea generation.
Meg Ragland, co-founder and president of Plum Print, an Asheville-based startup that is currently in the process of designing their own brand new office as they continue hiring new staff, largely agreed on the importance of a team working in close proximity to one another.
“It really makes communication better,” said Ragland, “I sit next to our lead developer and across from the customer service team.” This provides many opportunities for collaboration and quick, on-the-fly design or development tweaks, said Ragland, because she’s able to overhear the customer service conversations.
“I want to be sitting there and know at all times what is happening,” said Ragland.
In addition to emphasizing opportunities for collaboration, both entrepreneurs recommended that startups focus on two key cultural tenants from day one: transparency and grattitude.
“You could be brand new, or you could be a six-year veteran of the company,” said Corbett, “and in one idea, you can change the company immediately.” The focus on collaboration and resistance to any sort of beauracratic, “wait-your-turn” policies is the core of a company-wide value of transparency, said Corbett.
“Actually, though we are incredibly transparent,” said Corbett, “my executive team often holds me back.” Corbett provided a specific example of when he was debating releasing all salary and compensation information across the company, and his executive team pushed him to consider withholding individual details and rather focusing the research on total aggregate compensation.
Corbett’s company also holds quarterly internal retreats, usually a full day, and at least one weekend retreat each year, where everyone in the company gathers to work on internal improvement and collaboration.
“I really believe in the importance of thanking our employees,” said Ragland, “verbally, and publically, and often.” Gratitude goes a long way in establishing culture, said Ragland, who works to find opportunities to thank her part-time and full-time employees.
“Folks regularly stop by our office,” said Ragland, “I make it a point to introduce each of our employees, and to share why their work is important.” If your company gets visitors, whether their clients, folks on a startup tour, or economic development officers, be mindful not to have a repetitive expression of grattitude, said Ragland. “It’s important to be genuine and to find new things to share about our employees,” said Ragland.
Each company has some unique perks, which contribute to the overall culture of the company, and also impact hiring pipelines.
At iStrategyLabs, Corbett requires that employees at all levels take and use vacation time. The company has an unlimited leave policy, said Corbett, “yet we want to ensure that people actually take vacation, so we require managers to schedule it with their teams.” After five years of employment, employees receive $2,500 to put toward a paid vacation, said Corbett. At three years of employment, an employee’s colleagues plan an adventure day worth up to $500 for their colleague (and many folks join in on that adventure).
Each company gathers once a week for a communal catered lunch. It’s a way to bring the team together, said Ragland, and to focus on celebrating and spending time with one another. This is an easy, and scalable, option for startups to consider implementing in their companies. Plum Print has less than ten full-time employees and less than ten part-time employees, whereas iStrategyLabs is up to 80 employees, 40 of whom joined the company within the last 12 months.
“For the first 20 hires,” said Corbett, “I made all of the hiring decisions.” A company’s first hires are vitally important, said Corbett, and many times he opted to hire a new employee after just one conversation, due to the amount of vetting that went into the candidate’s hiring process prior to a first interview.
At Plum Print, the hiring process has been a bit different.
“All of our candidates meet with someone else on our team,” said Ragland, “before I meet with them.” To date, every candidate under consideration for hire has taken some form of performance task, said Ragland, whether that be an editing test, solving a particular bug or issue in a product’s code base, or something else. Both organizations do thorough vetting, well beyond the traditional reference check from references that the candidate provides.
“I always find someone that knows the candidate, but isn’t on their reference list,” said Ragland. These conversations are often more enlightening, said Ragland. Ragland opts to tell the employee, once hired, the extent of what was uncovered during the vetting process, and what she learned about them along the way.
iStrategyLabs now leverages a recruiting tool to handle the entire process, said Corbett, which has been a good investment for the company in the past year, as they’ve added 40 new employees. Now, said Corbett, he rarely meets with candidates or makes final hiring decisions. “I am involved in recruiting, though,” said Corbett, “and I love it.”
“It’s sales,” said Corbett, “It’s really just sales. I want to close a multi-million dollar deal, and I want to close a hire. It’s the same thing for me, and my team knows this, too.”
One of the very best things that a company in growth mode can do, said Corbett, is to have their CEO conduct the outreach to potential candidates. Don’t outsource this to a recruiter, said Corbett. The response from high-quality candidates when a CEO reaches out and expresses specific interest in work they’ve done is incredible.
“It’s worth putting time in on the front end,” said Corbett, “and I always tell candidates why I’ve reached out to them–it’s never a “spray-and-pray”–there’s always a specific reason.”
